08.10.2024 World-Tour, News, Race news

ZOE BÄCKSTEDT WINS STAGE 1 OF THE SIMAC LADIES TOUR

Zoe Bäckstedt opened the 2024 Simac Ladies Tour with a statement, taking an impressive victory in the Stage 1 individual time trial. Zoe sped around the flat 10.1km course in an average speed of just under 48km/h. The 20-year-old rider secured her first-ever Women’s World Tour stage victory ahead of a strong field in Gennep, the Netherlands. Teammate Chloé Dygert finished in tenth place. Zoe now leads the general, points, and youth classifications ahead of tomorrow’s stage two.

Zoe Bäckstedt: “It was a really interesting course with a lot of Netherland-style clinkers and speed bumps in the first 1.5km. I took the first half slightly conservative to keep something for the power stretch of the course. I feel like it was a course that suited me quite nicely, with tight corners and power sections where you had to push on the pedals. When I got to the turnaround point, I wasn’t feeling amazing, but I could come in quite quickly and was surprised to see that I had the fastest time. And then to keep the fastest time is really cool.”

“After Ride London at the end of May, I was sick and took over a month off the bike to recover. I slowly built up and raced the Tour de l’Ardéche with CANYON//SRAM Generation, and I also did GP Stuttgart. Being here is the end of the road season and is also part of building my form before the cyclo-cross season. I also think many riders here are quite tired from the season, and I feel like I’m fresh and just getting started. For the next stages, I have no expectations. I’m going to go and race my bike and have fun, and we’ll see what happens.”

Zoe leads the general classification by seven seconds from Lieke Nooijen, the youth classification by thirty-seven seconds and leads the points classification. Tomorrow’s stage two is a flat course from Coevorden to Assen with one ascent of the VAMberg.